AFP Asia Business

Syrian armed group Jaish al-Islam said its leader was arrested upon arrival at Dubai airport several days ago as supporters gathered in Damascus to demand his release.Since 2015, Issam Buwaydani has been head of Jaish al-Islam, a group that fought against the now-ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad and once controlled the Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus.After Syria’s new authorities announced the dissolution of armed groups following Assad’s December overthrow, Jaish al-Islam was integrated into the new Syrian forces and Buwaydani became a defence ministry official. Two sources close to Buwaydani told AFP that he had been arrested Thursday at Dubai airport as he was leaving the United Arab Emirates.Requesting anonymity because the matter is sensitive, they said he had entered the UAE on a Turkish passport.”We do not know the reasons for his arrest,” one of the sources said, adding that Buwaydani was on a private visit to the Gulf country.”The Syrian government has been in contact with the Emirates” but has not received a response, the source added.Jaish al-Islam’s chief military spokesman Hamza Bayraqdar on messaging app Telegram appealed for “the immediate and unconditional release” of Buwaydani, calling him “one of the symbols of the Syrian revolution”.The UAE has not confirmed Buwaydani’s arrest.Earlier this month the Emirates welcomed Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa for his first official visit to the country.Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led the coalition that ousted Assad on December 8.Several dozen people gathered in Damascus’ Umayyad Square on Monday to demand Buwaydani’s release, urging their government to intervene in the matter.”I am demonstrating here to send a message to the UAE and to the new Syrian government, and specifically to the foreign minister, to demand the release of the heroic leader Issam Buwaydani,” Abu Khaled Nassif, one of the protesters, told AFP.Buwaydani took over Jaish al-Islam after the killing of its founder, Zahran Alloush, in 2015.Activists have blamed Jaish al-Islam for the December 2013 kidnapping of four human rights activists including Syrian lawyer and journalist Razan Zeitouneh.The group, which withdrew to northwest Syria after Assad’s forces retook the Ghouta area, has denied the allegations.Since Assad’s overthrow, Buwaydani has appeared next to Sharaa on several occasions.Former Jaish al-Islam member Majdi Nema goes on trial in France this week for alleged involvement in war crimes in Syria between 2013 and 2016.

Iran’s interior minister on Monday blamed “negligence” for a massive explosion that killed 65 people at the country’s largest commercial port, with firefighters still battling a blaze at the facility two days later.The blast occurred on Saturday at the Shahid Rajaee Port in Iran’s south, near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil output passes.”The death toll has reached 65 in this horrific incident,” Mohammad Ashouri, governor of the southern Hormozgan province where the port is located, told state television, adding that the fire has not been fully extinguished yet.Officials have said more than 1,000 people were injured. The province’s crisis management director, Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, said most had already been released after treatment.On Monday, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni told state TV that “culprits have been identified and summoned”, and that the blast was caused by “shortcomings, including noncompliance with safety precautions and negligence”.Momeni, who has been in the area since hours after the blast, stated that the “investigation is still underway”.Iran’s state TV showed images of firefighters still dousing the flames Monday, and said the damage would be assessed after the fire was fully brought under control.Heavy charcoal-black smoke continued to billow over low flames at part of the site, above which a firefighting helicopter flew, pictures from the Iranian Red Crescent showed.Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered a probe into the incident. – Smoke, then a fireball -It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion but the port’s customs office said it likely resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot. CCTV images on social media showed it began gradually, with a small fire belching orange-brown smoke among a few containers stacked outside, across from a warehouse.A small forklift truck drives past the area and men can be seen walking nearby.About one minute after the small fire and smoke become visible, a fireball erupts as vehicles pass nearby, with men running for their lives.President Masoud Pezeshkian visited hospitals treating the wounded on Sunday in the nearby city of Bandar Abbas. Since the explosion, authorities have ordered all schools and offices in the area closed, and have urged residents to avoid going outside “until further notice” and to use protective masks.The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate — a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.Defence ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik later told state TV that “there has been no imported or exported cargo for military fuel or military use in the area”.Iran’s ally Russia has dispatched specialists to help battle the blazes.Authorities have declared Monday a national day of mourning, while three days of mourning began Sunday in Hormozgan province.The blast occurred as Iranian and US delegations were meeting in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme.While Iranian authorities so far appear to be treating the blast as an accident, it also comes against the backdrop of years of shadow war with regional foe Israel.According to The Washington Post, Israel launched a cyberattack targeting the Shahid Rajaee Port in 2020.

Catholic cardinals agreed on Monday to begin a conclave on May 7 to elect a new pope, and highlighted clerical sexual abuse as one of the key challenges facing Pope Francis’s successor.Cardinals under the age of 80 will meet in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new leader for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, in a mystery-shrouded ritual dating back to the Middle Ages.The date was decided at a meeting of cardinals of all ages early on Monday, two days after the funeral of Francis, who died on April 21 aged 88.The cardinals, known as “Princes of the Church”, outlined Catholicism’s most pressing challenges, including “evangelisation, the relationship with other faiths (and) the issue of abuse”, the Vatican said.”There was talk of the qualities that the new pontiff must possess to respond effectively to these challenges,” it added.The Church’s 252 cardinals were recalled to Rome after the Argentine pontiff’s death, although only 135 are eligible to vote in the conclave.They hail from all corners of the globe, and many of them do not know each other.But they already had four meetings last week, so-called “general congregations”, where they began to become better acquainted.- ‘Fraternal’ atmosphere -Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, 83, a former head of the Italian bishops’ conference, said there was a “beautiful fraternal atmosphere”.”Of course, there may be some difficulties because the voters have never been so numerous and not everyone knows each other,” he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.On Monday, the Vatican closed the Sistine Chapel, where voting will take place under Michelangelo’s 16th-century ceiling frescoes, to begin preparations.So far there are few clues as to who the cardinals might choose.”I believe that if Francis has been the pope of surprises, this conclave will be too, as it is not at all predictable,” Spanish Cardinal Jose Cobo told El Pais in an interview published on Sunday.Francis was laid to rest on Saturday, a ceremony that drew 400,000 people, including royalty, world leaders and ordinary pilgrims.On Sunday, about 70,000 mourners filed past his marble tomb in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome, after the “pope of the poor” opted to be buried outside the Vatican’s walls.- ‘Sacred obligation’ -With conflicts and diplomatic crises raging around the world, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin is for many the favourite to succeed Francis.Parolin was secretary of state under Francis — the pope’s number two.British bookmakers William Hill put Parolin slightly ahead of Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, the Metropolitan Archbishop emeritus of Manila, followed by Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson.Next in their odds come Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna; Guinea’s Cardinal Robert Sarah; and Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.Francis’s successor will inherit a series of measures he introduced to combat clerical sexual abuse.But victims’ associations say he did not do enough, and the scandals show no sign of abating.Anne Barrett Doyle from BishopAccountability.org told AFP the abuse archive “applaud(s) the acknowledgment by the cardinals that ending the abuse crisis must be a priority”.”The Church worldwide, through its parishes, schools, hospitals and orphanages, cares for tens of millions of children. The next pope’s most sacred obligation must be to protect them”, she said.The challenge is significant. In many African and Asian countries, the subject remains taboo.Even in Europe, Italy has yet to launch an independent investigation into abuse allegations.- ‘Unity’ -While Francis’s efforts to create a more compassionate Church earned him widespread affection and respect, some of his reforms angered the Church’s conservative wing, particularly in the United States and Africa.Roberto Regoli, a professor of Church history and culture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, told AFP the cardinals would be looking “to find someone who knows how to forge greater unity”.”We are in a period in which Catholicism is experiencing various polarisations, so I don’t imagine it will be a very, very quick conclave,” he said.Bassetti, who is too old to participate, said that he thought it “will not be long”.Some 80 percent of the cardinal electors were appointed by Francis — although that is no guarantee they will pick a successor in his mould.Most are relatively young, and for many it is their first conclave.- ‘Courageous leader’ -The vote is highly secretive and follows strict rules and ceremonial procedures.The process could take several days or potentially longer.There are four votes per day — two each in the morning and afternoon — until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority.Fewer than half of those eligible to vote are European.”The future pope must have a universal heart (and) love all the continents. We must not look at colour, at origin, but at what is proposed,” Cardinal Dieudonne Nzapalainga from the Central African Republic told the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.”We need a courageous leader, a bold one, capable of speaking forcefully, of holding the helm of the Church steady even in storms… offering stability in an era of great uncertainty.”Italian pensioner Emilia Greco said she hoped “all the doors that Pope Francis opened — to hope, to those marginalised, to the poor… can be kept open and expanded, (to create) a truly inclusive Church”.

Iran’s minister of interior on Monday blamed “negligence” for a massive explosion that killed 46 people at the country’s largest commercial port, with firefighters still battling a blaze at the facility two days later.  The blast took place on Saturday at the Shahid Rajaee Port in Iran’s south near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil output passes. “The death toll in the Shahid Rajaee Port fire has reached 46,” the official IRNA news agency reported, quoting Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, the crisis management director for Hormozgan province. Officials have said more than 1,000 people were injured, with Hassanzadeh noting most had since been released after treatment.Only “120 wounded are still in hospital”, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni, who is in the area, told state TV on Monday.He added that “culprits have been identified and summoned”, and that the blast was caused by “shortcomings, including noncompliance with safety precautions and negligence”.Iran’s state TV showed images of firefighters still dousing the flames Monday, and said the damage would be assessed after the fire was fully brought under control. Heavy charcoal-black smoke continued to billow over low flames at part of the site, above which a firefighting helicopter flew, pictures from the Iranian Red Crescent showed.Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered a probe into the incident. – Smoke, then a fireball -It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion but the port’s customs office said it likely resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot. CCTV images on social media showed it began gradually, with a small fire belching orange-brown smoke among a few containers stacked outside, across from a warehouse.A small forklift truck drives past the area and men can be seen walking nearby.About one minute after the small fire and smoke become visible, a fireball erupts as vehicles pass nearby, with men running for their lives.President Masoud Pezeshkian visited hospitals treating the wounded on Sunday in the nearby city of Bandar Abbas. Since the explosion, authorities have ordered all schools and offices in the area closed, and have urged residents to avoid going outside “until further notice” and to use protective masks.The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate — a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.Defence ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik later told state TV that “there has been no imported or exported cargo for military fuel or military use in the area”.Iran’s ally Russia has dispatched specialists to help battle the blazes.Authorities have declared Monday a national day of mourning, while three days of mourning began Sunday in Hormozgan province, where the port is located.The blast occurred as Iranian and US delegations were meeting in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, with both sides reporting progress.While Iranian authorities so far appear to be treating the blast as an accident, it also comes against the backdrop of years of shadow war with regional foe Israel.According to The Washington Post, Israel launched a cyberattack targeting the Shahid Rajaee Port in 2020

Catholic cardinals agreed on Monday to begin a conclave on May 7 to elect a new pope, and highlighted clerical sexual abuse as one of the key challenges facing Pope Francis’s successor.So-called “Princes of the Church” under the age of 80 will meet in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new religious leader for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.The date was decided at a meeting of cardinals of all ages early on Monday, two days after the funeral of Francis, who died on April 21 aged 88.The cardinals outlined the most pressing Church challenges including “evangelisation, the relationship with other faiths (and) the issue of abuse”, the Vatican said.”There was talk of the qualities that the new pontiff must possess to respond effectively to these challenges,” it added.The Church’s 252 cardinals were recalled to Rome after the Argentine’s death, although only 135 are eligible to vote in the conclave.They hail from all corners of the globe and many of them do not know each other.But they already had four meetings last week, so-called “general congregations”, where they began to become better acquainted.Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, 83, a former head of the Italian bishops’ conference, said there was a “beautiful fraternal atmosphere”.”Of course, there may be some difficulties because the voters have never been so numerous and not everyone knows each other,” he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper. On Monday, the Vatican closed the Sistine Chapel, where voting will take place under Michelangelo’s 16th-century ceiling frescoes, to begin preparations.So far there are few clues as to who the cardinals might choose.”I believe that if Francis has been the pope of surprises, this conclave will be too, as it is not at all predictable,” Spanish Cardinal Jose Cobo told El Pais in an interview published on Sunday.Francis was laid to rest on Saturday with a funeral and burial ceremony that drew 400,000 people to St Peter’s Square and beyond, including royalty, world leaders and ordinary pilgrims.On Sunday, about 70,000 mourners filed past his marble tomb in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome, after the “pope of the poor” opted to be buried outside the Vatican’s walls.- Abuse -With conflicts and diplomatic crises raging around the world, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin is for many the favourite to succeed him.Parolin was secretary of state under Francis — the pope’s number two.British bookmakers William Hill put him slightly ahead of Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, the Metropolitan Archbishop emeritus of Manila, followed by Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson.Next in their odds come Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna; Guinea’s Cardinal Robert Sarah; and Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. The cardinals have put the Catholic Church’s global sex abuse crisis on their list of pressing issues the new pope will have to tackle.Francis introduced a series of measures to combat clerical sexual abuse.But victims associations say he did not do enough and the issue remains a major challenge for the Church, with the scandals showing no sign of abating.The challenge is significant. In many African and Asian countries, the subject remains taboo. Even in Europe, Italy has yet to launch an independent investigation into abuse allegations.While Francis’s efforts to create a more compassionate Church earned him widespread affection and respect, some of his reforms angered the Church’s conservative wing, particularly in the United States and Africa.Roberto Regoli, a professor of Church history and culture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, told AFP that the cardinals would be looking “to find someone who knows how to forge greater unity”.”We are in a period in which Catholicism is experiencing various polarisations, so I don’t imagine it will be a very, very quick conclave,” he said.Bassetti, who is too old to participate, said that he thought it “will not be long”.Some 80 percent of the cardinal electors were appointed by Francis — although that is no guarantee they will pick a successor in his mould.Most are relatively young, and for many it is their first conclave.- ‘We need a courageous leader’ -The vote is highly secretive and follows strict rules and ceremonial procedures. The process could take several days or potentially longer.There are four votes per day — two each in the morning and afternoon — until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority.Fewer than half of those eligible to vote are European.”The future pope must have a universal heart (and) love all the continents. We must not look at colour, at origin, but at what is proposed,” Cardinal Dieudonne Nzapalainga from the Central African Republic told the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.”We need a courageous leader, a bold one, capable of speaking forcefully, of holding the helm of the Church steady even in storms… offering stability in an era of great uncertainty.”Patrizia Spotti, a 68-year-old Italian visiting Rome for the 2025 Jubilee holy year, told AFP on Monday that she hoped the new pontiff “will be a pope like Francis”.It was a difficult time for Catholicism, she said.”Churches are empty and the Church itself has made mistakes — all the scandals with the children,” she said, referring to the widespread revelations of clerical sex abuse.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met Monday with his Azerbaijani counterpart in a rare visit to Baku, the latest sign of a thaw in relations between the two neighbours.Tensions between the two have run high for years, largely due to Azerbaijan’s close ties with Iran’s arch-enemy Israel, then further exacerbated by a January 2023 attack on Azerbaijan’s embassy in Tehran.”The two countries can resolve all issues jointly, through negotiations… and strengthen relations, with mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity,” Pezeshkian said at a joint press conference.”Iran will make efforts to ensure that its relations with Azerbaijan are strategic across all spheres,” he added. “We must not allow others to set us against one another.”Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Pezeshkian’s visit “is a reflection of the high level of relations between the two countries”. “Our peoples have lived for centuries in an atmosphere of friendship and brotherhood. Today, our interstate relations are developing on this solid foundation,” he added.Last week, Pezeshkian expressed hopes for a “rapid and serious improvement” in relations and cooperation between the two countries as part of a broader effort to “mend ties”.In a recent sign of rapprochement, Iran and Azerbaijan held two days of joint naval exercises in the Caspian Sea in November, according to Iranian media reports. But Tehran has long expressed concerns that Azerbaijani territory could be used by Israel — a major arms supplier to Baku — to stage a potential attack on Iran. In the embassy attack, a gunman killed an Azerbaijani diplomat and wounded two security guards. Iran condemned the attack but attributed it to “personal” grievances.In the aftermath, Baku shut its embassy in Tehran and both countries then ordered expulsions of the other’s diplomats. Azerbaijan reopened the embassy in mid-2024 after an Iranian court sentenced the attacker to death. Another point of dispute between the two countries has been the so-called Zangezur corridor, a proposed direct land link between Azerbaijan and Tehran’s historic rival Turkey.Tehran strongly opposes the project, which would run along Iran’s border with Armenia. Tehran has historically been wary of separatist sentiment among its ethnic Azerbaijani minority, which makes up around 10 million of Iran’s 83 million citizens.

A top Palestinian official told the International Court of Justice Monday that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza as a “weapon of war”, at the start of a week of hearings at the UN’s top court.Israel is not participating at the ICJ but hit back immediately, dismissing the hearings as “part of the systematic persecution and delegitimisation” of the country.The ICJ is hearing dozens of nations and organisations to draw up a so-called advisory opinion on Israel’s humanitarian obligations to Palestinians, more than 50 days into its total blockage on aid entering war-ravaged Gaza.Top Palestinian official Ammar Hijazi told judges that “all UN-supported bakeries in Gaza have been forced to shut their doors”.”Nine of every 10 Palestinians have no access to safe drinking water. Storage facilities of the UN and other international agencies are empty,” added Hijazi.”These are the facts. Starvation is here. Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war,” concluded the Palestinian representative.Speaking in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the case in The Hague was “part of a systematic persecution and delegitimisation of Israel”.”It is not Israel that should be on trial. It is the UN and UNRWA,” he told reporters, referring to the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees.Israel has banned UNRWA from operating on Israeli soil, after accusing some of the agency’s staff of participating in the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the conflict.Independent investigations say it has not provided evidence for its headline allegation.UNRWA Secretary-General Philippe Lazzarini urged Israel “as an occupying power” to “provide services or facilitate their delivery — including through UNRWA — to the population it is occupying”.- ‘Utmost urgency’ -In December, the UN’s General Assembly asked the ICJ for an advisory opinion “on a priority basis and with the utmost urgency”.The UN asked judges to clarify Israel’s legal duties towards the UN and its agencies, international organisations or third-party states to “ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population”.Israel strictly controls all inflows of international aid vital for the 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.It halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of a ceasefire that had significantly reduced hostilities after 15 months of war.Supplies are dwindling and the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) on Friday said it had sent out its “last remaining food stocks” to kitchens.AFP footage from a community kitchen in Gaza City shows scores of boys and girls crowded outside the facility, pushing their pots and pans forward in a desperate attempt to secure whatever food they can.The UN estimates 500,000 Palestinians have been displaced since the two-month ceasefire ended in mid-March.Israel resumed air bombardment on March 18, followed by renewed ground attacks.This has triggered what the UN has described as “likely the worst” humanitarian crisis the occupied Palestinian territory has faced since the war started after the Hamas October 7, 2023, attack.That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 52,243 people in Gaza since October 2023, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.At least 2,111 Palestinians have been killed since March 18.The UN considers the ministry’s figures reliable.The Israeli government says the assault aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza.Hostages’ relatives have said it could “sacrifice” their loved ones.Although the ICJ’s advisory opinions are not legally binding, the court believes they “carry great legal weight and moral authority”.Palestinian envoy to the UN Riyad Mansour told reporters the Palestinians were building an international law case against Israel “block on top of another block”.”We are very confident that after this horrific tragedy of our people, especially in the Gaza Strip, the arc of justice is bending toward Palestine, toward accomplishing our objectives.”